


The Physics of Coming Home

by Sintari (OriginalSintari)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bad Parent John Winchester, Bottom Sam Winchester, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Past Underage, Season/Series 01, Smut, Top Dean Winchester, Top Dean Winchester/Bottom Sam Winchester, first time in a long time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 11:59:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OriginalSintari/pseuds/Sintari
Summary: “Why’d you go?” hangs in the air between them. Dean’s eyes are question marks on Sam’s now, and no one they know is anywhere around here.





	The Physics of Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the lovely and conscientious [RatFlavored](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RatFlavored/pseuds/RatFlavored) for the beta. Remaining mistakes are all mine due to my incessant fiddling and fretting.
> 
> This was not intended to have a plot. Sigh.

_I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays? - Jonathan Safran Foer_

Black dogs are supposed to be death omens, Sam knows. You see a black dog, within twenty-four hours you’re dropping dead of a heart attack or wrapped around a telephone pole. As such, there isn’t really much a hunter can do about a black dog. In fact, since they mainly appear to superstitious people, it’s probably a kindness for a hunter to leave black dogs be. Give their “victims” a chance to get their affairs in order and kiss their kids goodbye one last time.

But they reason they’re holed up in one room of what was once a two-room cabin smack on the side of a mountain in the heart of the Blue Ridge is because one black dog doesn’t seem to be holding up his end of the bargain.

It was Sam who’d spotted the story in a Weekly World News while waiting in a grocery store line. If it hadn’t been for the exhausted mother cashing in every single one of her WIC vouchers, he may not have picked up on the three supposed “animal attacks” all preceded by the victim reporting nearly running over a large black dog at a place called, ominously, Dark Hollow Road.

“They go on vacation at a place called Dark Hollow Road? On a mountain called BLOOD Mountain? And they expect what…? Geez. Maybe some people just deserve what they get,” Dean had groused when Sam told him about the case. But he always got like this when they had to drive through mountains. The grade wreaked havoc on Baby’s suspension.

All the victims were staying in one of the cabins at Whispering Hollow Cabins Rentals, pint-sized mountain cabins so far from anything else that, as far as Sam could tell, they were only attractive to honeymooners, adulterers, or loners who needed some extra time and space to polish their manifestos.

They whole trip up the mountain Dean scanned the forest and pumped the brakes at the slightest sign of movement in the shadows. He was snappish and frayed by the time they reached the rental cabin Sam had found for them.

“Look at the stars,” Sam tries when they found the final bend. “You can practically see the Milky Way up here.”

But his brother would not be deterred.

“Nice try, geekboy. This is… a half house, Sam.”

“So, this unit was damaged in a tornado. But look, the front room is fine. The water’s even still on,” Sam said all this in his best real estate agent voice. Dean wasn’t buying. “Yeah, yeah, okay. It’s a dump. There’s um… no power. But hey, we have the lantern and the flashlights.”

At Dean’s incredulous look, he tried one last time. “Hey, it’s motivation to solve this case quick and get out of here?”

Dean grabbed his duffel from the trunk before brandishing a whiskey-bottle shaped brown paper bag in Sam’s general direction. “You’re lucky we passed through Kentucky.”

()()()()()

Later, they’ve set their sleeping bags up head-to-toe in the cabin’s only intact room. Sam would never admit it, of course, but he finds the southern Appalachians creepy. There’s a lot of lore about these hills, even down to the way the wind blowing around their cabin sounds like a ghostly moan. He thinks he remembers a legend about this. The “Ghost Choir,” maybe? He starts to pull out his laptop to look it up before remembering that there’s, of course, no internet.

Dean, sitting sprawled on top of his own sleeping bag across from him and already making headway on his giant bottle of Maker’s Mark, notices Sam’s unconscious reach for the computer and smirks.

“I guess we gotta do it the way the pioneers did it.” He waggles his eyebrows, then offers the bottle to Sam.

They’ve set up the lantern in the corner. When it’s not sputtering the last of its battery, the shadows soften his brother’s face until he looks younger, like the Dean who Sam grew up worshiping.

Like the earlier inhabitants of these mountains must have done, they sit up trading stories about black dogs, past hunts, and worn memories. Dean is careful when he mentions hunts Sam missed. Sam doesn’t call anybody at Stanford by name. It hasn’t been long since they’ve come back together after Sam’s ill-conceived flight, so they blunt their weapons tonight. Their aim is always so true.

It’s more than Sam’s drank since he left Stanford, which how he surprises himself asking questions he probably wouldn’t in the cold light of day. 

“So what happened with Cassie?”

“It’s not that complicated, man. She just didn’t want this life either, you know?”

“Either?” But Sam knows the answer to the question as soon as he asks it. Oh. Like me. 

They grow quiet then, in the room crowded with all the things they’re not saying.

Sam’s about to try to tell another story from their misbegotten teen years when his brother takes a deep breath.

“Why’d you go?” Dean’s voice cracks when he asks. Like he wishes, just as he says it, that he could take it back.

“It wasn’t you, man. It was just- When Dad called from California, I felt like finding him was the right move.”

Sam watches his brother, raise his eyebrows in a silent “right.” They’ve never needed words, the two of them. Dean’s hugging one knee, with the other long leg thrown straight out in front of him, the neck of the bottle loose in his hand, a pose only a seasoned drinker can hold. He looks practiced and disreputable. He couldn’t possibly be more beautiful.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Dean finally says. And they’re not talking about Burkittsville, Indiana three-weeks-ago. If they ever were.

Sam knows his brother. Nobody knows Dean like Sam knows Dean. And his brother’s embarrassed now. For letting his loose tongue ask the question he’s held on to for all these years. Sam watches him, illuminated by the lantern light, take a shaky swig from the bottle, then swipe a spill off the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

Four years ago, Sam would have licked that drop off like a kitten. If he lets himself, he can still feel Dean’s stubble sandpapery on his tongue. That Sam would have then pushed into his brother’s mouth for another taste of whiskey. Four-years-ago Dean may even have required it. But four years is a long time.

 _Why’d you go?_ still hangs in the air between them.

“It was Dad.” Sam finally says. Dean’s eyes, grown glassy from his head start on the bottle, focus now. His eyes are question marks on Sam’s.

Sam swallows under the light of his brother’s attention. “He knew.”

Dean’s not coy. His eyes grow large, but he doesn’t do them both the disservice of asking “Knew what?” When you have a secret like theirs, what they’ve done with each other, starting with Dean’s hand circling Sam’s wrist, guiding him beneath the covers and then lower, there can only ever be one thing. After all, when you’ve tasted your brother’s breath right out of his mouth, how do you ever taste anything else?

“How?” Dean finally asks.

Sam reaches for the bottle again before answering. Their fingers touch, linger, during the handoff.

“Not sure. You know how he is, Dean. He never comes out and says anything.”

All the same, Sam remembers that day, the strange anti-climax of it, like it was yesterday.

They’d been renting a house in Longmont, Colorado. For a change, Dad had woken up with them that morning. When Dean snagged his to-go cup of coffee and said, “Time for school, Sammy,” John had surprised them both by plucking the keys from Dean’s hand.

“I’ll drive him.” 

This was not good.

“I’ll go with-“ Dean had started. But John had shaken his head in that way that always silenced Dean, and always compelled Sam to question and disbelieve.

Shoulder to shoulder in the car Dad immediately turned the wrong way.

“It’s to the left,” Sam began.

“We’re taking the long way.” The whiskey-laced rumble of his dad’s voice nearly matched the pitch of the Impala’s engine.

When the highway dissolved to twisting back roads, John began to speak.

“So, I know you never knew her. But if you had, you’d know that your brother is a lot like your mom.”

At seventeen, irritation brewed in Sam’s gut at any mention of Mary Winchester. Dad and Dean always talked about her like she was a treasure only the two of them shared, while the only thing Sam ever got was roughly fifty percent of her DNA.

“But you, Sam. You’re more like me.”

Sam watched at 7:44 in the morning as his dad unscrewed the top of his flask to “take the edge off” and knew this wasn’t a compliment.

“The way I raised you…”

Sam’s ears perked up further at this. Was his father about to admit a weakness?

“…It had to be done.” Sam noted how John Winchester’s word choice absolved him. The bottle emptied. The drywall imploded. The sons grew up.

“But you, son… You have a choice now.”

Sam remained silent.

“What I meant to say is… Dean is a spectacular hunter,” John tried again. “But he’s been distracted. And I don’t know why.” A pause. “Sam, I don’t _need_ to know why.”

Fear is a gift, their father always taught them. Recognize it, embrace it, trust it. It may just save your goddamn life. From there Sam didn’t need to hear the rest. Because one thought - _“he knows”_ \- pinged like a pain response up his spinal cord and set every one of his hairs on end.

“Do we have an understanding, son?” they’d pulled up to Sam’s school now. His father gripped his wrist hard with one hand. Like Dean had the night before. Just like he had no way of knowing Dean had the night before.

That day Sam had cut class, vowing to get home to Dean. To sneak in, take his brother’s hand in one of his, and the keys to the Impala in the other, and run. But on the walk home his father’s words caught up to him, the way you know something is true but can’t let yourself _know_ it until someone else says it out loud. His plan would mean asking Dean to make a choice. And Sam wasn’t sure who his brother would choose.

Stanford had seemed like the only option after that.

Now here they are again. Four years have passed, and their dad is god-knows-where, but his two sons are both dancing to his tune just like nothing ever changed. 

Sam looks at Dean, so close he could touch him. He thinks about his Intro to Astrophysics and Cosmology class. How the Big Bang theory posits that everything in the whole entire universe is moving farther and farther away from everything else, every second. Dean’s right here. If Sam twisted his ankle right now, he could caress his brother’s thigh with his own steel-toe. But somehow it feels like Dean’s hurtling away, through a cascade of stars.

And Sam can’t stand that thought.

His brother is in arm’s reach, licking more sloppy whiskey off the curl of his lip. The only sounds in the cabin are tree frogs trilling and the blood pounding in Sam’s ears because he’s about to do what he should have done four years ago.

“I should have told you,” Sam says. “‘I’m sorry I didn’t.” Then, meeting Dean’s eye, he crosses his wrists in front of him, showing the vulnerable blue veins inside his arm to his brother, and stretches his crossed wrists over his head.

Dean’s pupils dilate then. He looks at Sam like he’s the only thing in the entire world. It’s an expression Sam hasn’t seen in far, far too long. And no one they know is anywhere around here.

That’s when the lantern’s batteries finally give out.

“Don’t you dare move.” Dean’s voice is a low animal growl in the dark.

That’s all it takes to set Sam’s pulse racing. His cock strains uncomfortable against his jeans but he knows better than to reach down and adjust.

As if he would ever disobey.

There's a snap as Dean’s flashlight flicks on. He’s careful not to direct the glare at Sam’s eyes as the light travels up the wall to find Sam’s crossed wrists. Sam’s vision hasn’t adjusted yet so all he sees is the circle of light growing closer. He lets out a whimper when he finally feels his tender wrists ground together in one of his brother’s thick hands.

Sam feels Dean’s forehead pressed against his own now. His every inhalation and exhalation are magnified in the dark. “Is this real?”

“Yes,” Sam chokes out. It sounds less sure than he is. So he tries again. “God, yes.”

“Oh God. Finally.“ A pause. “You got bigger,” Dean’s voice is next to his ear now. “Can’t hold you down like I used to.”

“Try,” Sam breathes through the smile he can’t suppress. Dean wouldn’t like that, if he could see Sam now. He always liked Sam pliable and obedient. At least at first.

“Fucking lantern,” his brother continues. “I want to see you. See how you look now. Been wanting to this whole time.”

Dean tugs his wrists, his other hand finding the nape of Sam’s neck. His brother’s face is a dark shape growing closer, then they’re kissing for the first time in four years and oh yes – they haven’t forgotten how to do this. It’s like the first gasp of air when you were sure you’d drowned.

His brother tastes like whiskey and sex and every good memory.

Then Dean is pawing at his waist, finds Sam’s belt loop and hooking a finger through. He pulls them both to standing, never breaking the kiss. The flashlight is still on and Dean picks it up and aims it.

“Stay,” he orders Sam, pinning his wrists to the wall.

“You used to be so skinny here,” the light beam, with Dean’s other hand chasing it, finds Sam’s chest.

The beam scans lower, finding Sam’s stomach. “Rounded here. Not anymore, though.”

Dean skates a hand under his layers, thumbs over his abs, the tender spot beneath his belly button, and the trail of dark hair leading lower. Sam inhales noisily as his brother unbuttons him with one smooth motion.

“And, I gotta say,” he slides his hand around Sam’s cock without warning, causing Sam to exhale a ragged moan. “What’s concerning me is this.” He aims the flashlight beam straight at Sam’s crotch, causing Sam to squirm at being put on display. “Holy shit, you have grown.”

“Dean,” Sam breathes. He’s thrusting into Dean’s cupped hand, still under the glare of the flashlight beam, feeling like a sample under a microscope. His brother’s hand around him, blunt-nailed thumb teasing the head of his cock is the most erotic sight he’s ever seen. Yeah, it may have only been a day or so since he came in the shower at their last motel, but it’s been one thousand five hundred and four days since he came to this and god help him, but he won’t last long.

Still reading all of Sam’s tells, Dean pulls away, not just his hand on Sam’s cock but his whole body. Then Sam feels his brother’s hands caging his wrists again. As if Sam had any intention of going somewhere.

“On your knees,” Dean orders.

His wrists still trapped above his head, Sam has no way of pulling his shirts down or tucking back in. He glides bonelessly down in front of his brother, who with the flashlight’s beam caresses his body, first down – arms straining, shirts rucked up, cock shamelessly exposed and leaking - then up.

“So disheveled, Sammy,” his brother says what Sam’s thinking. “You already look fucking used and I haven’t got started yet.” Sam’s cock jumps at the words.

He shines the light on his own fly.

“Suck me.”

“But…” Sam protests. Dean’s fly is still securely buttoned. His zipper snug.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” and Sam can hear the grin in his brother’s voice. “Out of practice? Good. Here, I’ll help…”

This “help” is unbuttoning halfway so that Sam still has to tug at the corner of Dean’s fly with his teeth to finish the job. Dean’s shining the flashlight from above now, getting the top-down view of his brother’s struggle. The button slides free. After he’s accomplished the first part of his task Sam nuzzles against the soft skin of Dean’s stomach and inhales. There’s no other smell on this earth like his brother.

Sam couldn’t want this more.

“Times wasting, Sammy,” his brother says, tapping him lightly on the shoulder with the flashlight. He always calls him Sammy, when they’re… doing this. He’s ashamed to admit that he stiffens up every time Dean calls him that these days.

Sam finds Dean’s zipper with his tongue, grips it in his teeth and worries it down. That scent again. All Dean. He nuzzles his brother’s cock through the material of his boxers. Then he flattens his tongue and licks through the fabric up Dean’s shaft. His brother is hard as the barrel of a gun.

“Holy shit,” Dean’s hissing, speaking between panting breaths. “In your mouth.” Fingers kneading at Sam’s shoulders. “Sammy, in your mouth. Now.” For a split second, the flashlight is bright in Sam’s eyes and he flinches back. “Sorry,” his brother says, pawing his cock out of its cage of cloth. “It’s just that… Fuck, I gotta see this.”

At that, Sam – his hands still stretched above his head – swallows his brother’s cock.

He can’t see a thing, but Sam hears the thud of his brothers head as he leans back against the wall. “Ho-ly fu-ck.”

Sam feels Dean’s fingers rustle loosely through the hair at the back of his neck. Then he’s clenching, pulling. It sparks white hot points of pain, which only spur Sam to suck faster. It’s sloppy, with no hands, and it’ll be hard to make Dean come like this. Which is the point, Sam knows.

“My turn,” Dean growls, and Sam stops moving to let his brother fuck into his mouth, down his throat, pull out and then fuck back in past that invisible barrier that makes Sam gasp and choke. Tears spill but Dean is soothing now, “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re doing so good, Sammy.” The flashlight is still trained on him, as his hungry mouth is savaged by his brother’s cock.

“You’re pretty when you’re choking on my cock, you know that, Sammy? Yeah, you know that?”

Sam knows just what he's supposed to do, moans an affirmative as best he can with Dean down his throat.

That’s what it takes.

“Oh fuck, Sammy. Oh Sammy I missed this.”

Dean’s come is a torrent, and Sam swallows, again and again. And with every swallow Sam is thinking “He still wants it. Still wants it. I didn’t ruin it.”

Dean leans back against the wall and finally releases Sam’s wrists so he can wipe the saliva and come off his face with his shirt tail.

Dean snaps the flashlight off. His muttered “come here” is loud to Sam in the stillness.

Sam isn’t used to being taller now, when their mouths find each other in the dark, trading whiskey and Dean’s come. His brother turns, rocks one hipbone into Sam’s crotch and Sam can’t help but fuck into his brother over his jeans.

“Whoa,” Dean says. Splaying his palm over Sam’s cock in a warning, he licks at the corner of Sam’s lip, moves down to place the tiniest of bites at the point of his jaw, then slicks a trail of saliva down Sam’s neck. “Slow down. Have I ever left you wanting?”

When Sam doesn’t reply, he falls perfectly still. Asks again, “Sammy, have I ever let you down?”

No, Sam realizes. I should have told you, he thinks again. 

But “Never,” is what he breathes into the dark. He’s literally shaking with want now.

The flashlight is back on. Dean holds it up, illuminates their faces from above. Sam can finally see his brother now, pupils blown, lips bee-stung, expression wondering. “You should have said. Back then,” and by now Sam shouldn’t be surprised at how his brother reads his mind. 

“Dean, please…” Sam knows he shouldn’t, but he’s bucking against Dean’s palm now.

“Let me watch you,” Dean exhales. “Show me like you used to show me.”

With that his brother takes a step back, shines the light back at Sam’s crotch. Normally center-stage like this might cause a guy to wilt, but Sam’s too far gone. Much too far gone.

“Show me, Sammy,” Dean commands. “And I’ll tell you when.”

That’s all the permission Sam needs. He slicks his cock with pre-come and begins to stroke. If he didn’t know better he’d think he was having a heart attack. His panting breaths are the loudest thing in the room.

“Nuh uh. Not yet,” his brother says, when Sam’s little murmurs begin to crescendo. It’s like the loss of a limb, but Sam stops mid-stroke, removes his hand. Clenches his fist where he’d been clenching his cock. He’s this close to spasming anyway.

“Good boy,” Dean’s voice, in the dark. Sam can literally hear the smirk. Quick as a flash, Dean pins Sam’s right wrist to the wall, the performance still spot lit.

The longest of pauses.

“Now, Sammy. Come for me.”

Such is the power his brother’s voice holds over him that Sam’s not even touching himself when he lets go. It’s like your most secret wish granted. It’s like falling backward a hundred stories. It’s like coming home.

When he’s back to himself Dean’s still right there, always ready to catch him. 

“Mine,” Dean husks into Sam’s shoulder. He falls with Sam as they both crater down the wall and to the floor. They’re a pile of sweat and come, whiskey and flannel, in the absolute dark of a Blue Ridge night.

He gropes across the floor, and the spaces between his fingers find the spaces between Dean’s.

“Fuck the Metric Expansion of Space. Fuck the whole universe,” Sam thinks. The two of them - him and Dean - they’ll always find each other in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm new(ish now) to this fandom, so be my [Tumblr](https://crooked-sleep.tumblr.com/) neighbor?
> 
> Comments and kudos are love.


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